“I’m the man best qualified for the job. Nobody in the community, from Kobol on down, has scored as high as I have in all the physical and mental tests. I enjoy doing what I’ve been trained to do...”

“And she trained you,” Joanna said. “She’s brainwashed you.”

Alec jumped to his feet. “I think you’d better leave, Joanna. Either you don’t understand or you don’t want to.”

“No, Alec. It’s not either of those. I do understand... better than you do. I want to see you living your own life, not hers. Why should you throw yourself away for her career, her revenge?”

“Get out!” Alec shouted.

Defeated, Joanna got to her feet and went to the door. She opened it, turned her head toward Alec briefly and smiled sadly at him. “You poor fool.”

He was almost asleep when his mother finally returned home. For hours he had lain on the air mattress in his own cubicle, the lights off, staring at the hand-woven tapestry that concealed the water tank and fuel cell, listening to the mattress sigh every time he moved, trying to turn off his mind, become a blank, a cipher, a nothing. But every time he shut his eyes, he saw that miner’s leering face. It shifted and melted into the pictures of his father that he had seen. His father, who had left the Moon the day he had been born.

“You’re sleeping?”

Alec’s eyes snapped open. His mother was standing in the doorway, framed by the light from the main room.

“No.” He reached up and flicked on the overhead lights. She looked very tired.

Watching her as she stepped into his cubicle and took the chair next to his bed, Alec could see why every man in the settlement desired her. Lisa Ducharme Morgan was an enchantress, a dark beautiful sorceress. Compared to her, Joanna and the other girls his own age were pale and insubstantial. But Lisa was a cool beauty, a distant Diana or Artemis, perfectly attuned to the task of governing this tiny hothouse of transplanted humanity.

“I heard about your roughnecking,” she said quietly. “What were you trying to prove?”

“That you’re not a whore,” he answered, and immediately regretted it.

But she didn’t even blink. “Oh, that again? Another little benefit we have to thank your father for.”

“Has the Council voted?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head wearily. “The debate drags on. Kobol’s people are trying every trick they can play—even claiming that you’re too emotionally unstable to lead the mission. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fight wasn’t arranged deliberately.”

Alec thought it over briefly. “It could have been,” he admitted.

She leaned toward him, suddenly blazing with intensity. “Then can’t you understand how important it is for you to hold your temper? You broke every social rule we have today; how do you think the Council members will react to that? Save your anger for the real enemy, or you’ll ruin everything for both of us!”

With an effort, Alec kept his voice level. “All I want to know is when the Council will vote, and whether or not I will win.”

She stared at her son for a long moment. Alec looked back steadily into those endlessly deep, infinitely dark eyes. His own eyes.

“The vote will be tomorrow morning. I think we will win.”

“Then I’m going to Earth.”

“Yes. Just as your father did,” she replied bitterly.

Chapter 10

Alec snapped awake the next morning like the sudden step from darkness into full sunlight up on the Moon’s surface. He dry-bathed quickly and pulled a black jumpsuit over his trim frame. His mother was already dressed and waiting for him in the apartment’s main room. She handed him a cup of hot soybrew.

“I’ve decided to bring you with me to the Council meeting,” Lisa said.

He took a burning sip of the brew. “Kobol’s going to be there?”

“Of course.”

Alec watched her primp her thick, wavy hair in front of the room’s only mirror. The blue-gray suit she wore was simple, even severe, from its high Chinese collar to the loose-fitting slacks that ended in foot slippers. Still, when she raised her hands over her head that way... when she walked and her hips swayed rhythmically... Alec heard all the whispered gossip again, all the taunting shouts from childhood. He could feel his face burning. He clamped his teeth tightly together.

Lisa turned to him. “You needn’t look so grim. I told you that we’ll win the vote, and we will. Now come along.”

The Council chamber was purposely kept austere. The rock walls were unfinished, bare, as rough as the day the chamber had been blasted out of the virgin lunar stone. There were no decorations at all, nothing in the room except the big circular table and chairs, and a single viewscreen hung in the corner opposite the chamber’s only door.

Most of the Council members were already seated around the circular table. Lisa swept in regally, extending her hand to the men nearest her chair, smiling her hello to the others. She allowed Alec to hold her chair for her, then directed him to a chair almost exactly across the table, which had been set up for him beforehand.

“I thank you for the courtesy of allowing me to invite Alec to join us this morning.” Lisa smiled sweetly to the Council.

Alec kept his face blank as he took his chair. It was not polite to use your position for a point of personal privilege, but it would have been even more impolite for a Council member to object to Lisa’s request. But how will this affect their voting? he wondered to himself.

Several Council members nodded to Alec. He knew them all, of course. Nine men, six women. But three of them were still missing: Kobol and his two closest allies.

“That’s the chair your father used to sit in,” said the fat old fool next to Alec. “We saved it for you. Perhaps in a few years you will grace the Council with your membership.”

Alec nodded curtly. He did not trust himself to say anything.

Kobol arrived at last and all conversations stopped. Flanked by his two henchmen, he stood for a moment at the door and looked straight at Lisa. She returned his gaze without wavering. Then his eyes flicked away and he went to his chair.

Alec watched him, and knew that Kobol wanted the Council chairmanship, wanted to rule the lunar settlement, and especially wanted Lisa. And Alec felt a special brand of hate for Kobol. The man was his mother’s age. Tall and spare, his bony face looked cadaverous to Alec. Deepset eyes that were almost impossible to see under their graying, shaggy brows. His teeth were large, too prominent, horsy. He had worn a bushy mustache as long as Alec had known him. At first, Alec had thought it was to show that he wasted no extra water or power on shaving. More recently, though, Alec had come to the conclusion that Kobol’s mustache was there to divert attention from the fact that he was going bald.

As he sat at the Council table, at Lisa’s right, he said in his reedy, nasal voice, “Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s get on with it.”

Lisa allowed a slight smile to flicker across her lips. “We resume the adjourned session of yesterday,” he said for the microphone link to the central computer file. “The question before the Council is, who will command the upcoming expedition to Earth. The nominees are Councilman Martin Kobol and Citizen Alexander Morgan. Arguments have been heard and a motion for a vote was tabled at the conclusion of yesterday’s meeting.”

She glanced around the table. “Are there any questions before we vote on the motion?”

“I have a question,” said Councilman LaStrande. He looked like a wizened old gnome to Alec, diminutive, a scraggly beard sprouting from his chin, his eyes huge behind thick glasses.

Lisa acknowledged him with a nod.

LaStrande pushed his chair back and stood up. Jabbing a gnarled finger at Alec, he said, “Citizen Morgan is a very talented and capable young man. Everyone agrees on that. But he is young. Too young, I fear, to lead an expedition of such critical importance...”

“But the Benford expedition of...”

LaStrande cut him down with an imperious gesture. “Let’s not waste our time by arguing about previous expeditions!” His voice filled the room. “Some have been successful, some have not. I might point out that Morgan’s own father is responsible for the most disastrous expedition of them all, which is the direct cause of the crisis in which we now find ourselves.”

Alec seethed in silent fury. So LaStrande has gone over to Kobol’s side. Did my mother count this in her calculations about the vote?